House GOP puts off 'fiscal cliff' vote

Lacking support from his own caucus, Boehner drops effort to avoid 'fiscal cliff'

Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, center, departs, with reporters nearby after a House Republicans meeting on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012, in Washington. Confronted with a revolt among the rank and file, House Republicans abruptly put off a vote Thursday night on legislation allowing tax rates to rise for households earning $1 million and up.

WASHINGTON — House Speaker John Boehner abruptly abandoned a partisan plan to avert the year-end “fiscal cliff” late Thursday after failing to persuade conservative Republicans to extend tax cuts for the vast majority of Americans and let tax rates rise for millionaires.

With more than four dozen House Republicans either on the fence or signaling their opposition, Boehner, R-Ohio, and other GOP leaders shuttered the House floor moments before the vote was scheduled to begin. They disappeared into Boehner’s office and then summoned rank-and-file lawmakers to an emergency meeting that ended with a terse statement calling off the vote.

Boehner’s sudden move throws into chaos efforts to avoid the fiscal cliff, just 11 days before more than $500 billion in automatic tax increases and spending cuts are set to take effect. Unless Congress acts, many economists predict the nation will again descend into a recession.

The House is now recessed until after Christmas, and the Senate is scheduled to meet for only a few hours Friday afternoon before members leave town until Dec. 27.

Boehner’s inability to rally the House behind a proposal that would have preserved tax cuts for more than 99 percent of Americans — while raising rates for about 400,000 wealthy families — casts doubt on his ability to pass any alternative to the fiscal cliff. It also underscores the limited clout that he and his leadership team wield within the Republican caucus.

Boehner opened the emergency meeting with his lawmakers by announcing that he would deliver the prayer, an unusual move. He then launched into the familiar lines: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Moments later, Boehner’s office issued a written statement.

“The House did not take up the tax measure today because it did not have sufficient support from our members to pass. Now it is up to the president to work with Reid on legislation to avert the fiscal cliff,” the statement said, referring to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

“The House has already passed legislation to stop all of the January 1 tax rate increases and replace [automatic spending cuts] with responsible spending cuts that will begin to address our nation’s crippling debt. The Senate must now act.”

After the meeting, Boehner and other Republican leaders left the Capitol without answering reporters’ questions. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., announced that his chamber was leaving town until “after the Christmas holiday, when needed.”

The vote on “Plan B” was perhaps the most consequential test of Boehner’s leadership since he took control of the House early last year. Persuading a majority of Republicans to cast a politically treacherous vote to permit higher taxes could have enhanced his leverage with President Barack Obama in future talks to secure a broad plan to rein in the national debt, Republicans said.

Failure, however, immeasurably weakens Boehner’s hand — and could imperil his hold on power.

Until earlier this week, Boehner had been pursuing an entirely different course in hopes of striking a deal with Obama to save $2 trillion over the next decade. He offered to raise $1 trillion in fresh revenue, in part by raising tax rates for millionaires, and he offered to delay a fight over the federal debt limit for one year — both major GOP concessions.

On Monday, he abruptly switched gears, complaining that the president had not made concessions of equal size and significance to rein in the cost of federal health and retirement programs. Obama also insisted on delaying a debt-limit fight for two years, a position Republican leaders considered unacceptable.

Although Boehner had insisted earlier in the week that talks with Obama would continue, he announced that he was pursuing Plan B, a bare-bones bill to extend a variety of expiring tax breaks for the vast majority of Americans. The measure would permit taxes to rise on income over $1 million — affecting about 400,000 households — but by extending tax cuts for everyone else, it would significantly soften the economic blow of the fiscal cliff.

House leaders sold the bill as a $3.9 trillion tax cut — one of the largest in U.S. history. They received support from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, who agreed that the measure would not violate a pledge taken by virtually every Republican in Congress not to raise taxes.

Other conservatives, including the influential Club for Growth, complained that House Republicans were on the verge of raising taxes — by about $300 billion over the next decade compared with current law — without getting anything in return to reduce government spending.

As the week wore on and House leaders scrambled for votes, they amended the measure to raise even less revenue. And they announced plans to hold a vote on a separate bill that would cancel automatic spending cuts scheduled to hit the Pentagon in January and slice more deeply into domestic programs.

That measure narrowly won House approval late Thursday on a vote of 215 to 209.

Gradually, Plan B appeared to gain favor as a more preferable alternative to a deal with Obama that would raise $1 trillion in new taxes over the next decade and sacrifice GOP leverage to demand spending cuts in exchange for an increase in the debt ceiling.

“The Republicans are in an untenable situation,” Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., said shortly before the vote. “If we don’t do anything, we go over the fiscal cliff. And then the president will come back. . . . And if the economy goes to hell, he’s going to say it was the Republicans’ fault.

“Republicans have to do something of a positive nature to show the American public we’re concerned about middle-income people.”

Speaking to reporters at midday Thursday, Cantor confidently predicted that Plan B would pass. But as the vote approached in the evening, independent tallies suggested that the margin was razor thin.

With Democrats dead-set against the measure, Boehner could spare only two dozen Republicans. At least twice that many were either leaning against the bill or undecided, according to a tally maintained by the Hill newspaper.

Shortly after 7 p.m., the House adjourned and Republican leaders rushed to huddle privately in Boehner’s office just off the Capitol Rotunda, where the late senator Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii, was lying in state.

On his way to pay his respects to Inouye, Rep. Tim Scott, R-S.C., said he had “no clue” what was happening with Plan B. Asked whether he planned to vote for it, he said again: “I have no clue.”

As perplexed lawmakers streamed off the House floor, Rep. Charles Bass, R-N.H., who had been presiding over the evening’s debate, told puzzled reporters that he had did not know what was happening. “The House is in recess subject to the call of the chair,” he joked. “And I’m in the chair. “

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Boehner and his congressional republicans has become a joke. I have been saying right here for two years or more that the Tea Party (which has now seriously infected and damaged the larger GOP) only knew what they didn't want, what they didn't like -- they haven't got a clue what they do want, about how to actually govern, how to propose practical and achievable RESULTS that can actually pass in a divided government. They have a diminished majority in the House but they suffer from delusions of grandeur and will lose what they have got if they don't wake up -- soon!!

Boehner has shown himself to be incompetent and except for the fact that his replacement would probably be even worse, he should be replaced. He thinks he is running a tactical political war game to enhance his inside the beltway GOP when the American people have moved WAY BEYOND the gamesmanship and in fact see this as what is good for America and its citizens. Is he really going to take us over the fiscal cliff to protect the wealthiest 400,000 people among us? What idiots from both both a policy as well as tactical perspective.

Boehner couldnt even get the votes for a last min. plan C, which was introduced at the 11th hour. Plan C was basically Romney's plan on steroids, and they couldnt agree on that! The GOP plans a,b and c would never pass the senate and were a waste of time. These political stunts by the tea nuts, were in retaliation for losing their seats on committees.

But hey, at least a Veterans center got a new name because that's the only thing the GOP could agree on. I guess they ran out of post offices to rename.

We have just elected another insurgent Tea Party zealot from another gerrymandered Republican district to go to the House, hold the country hostage, and attempt to extort concessions that only benefit his millionaire constituents in Ponte Vedra who bankrolled his campaign.

This guy symbolizes everything that is wrong with America today. He claims to come from a humble background, but it looks more like Yale and Harvard Law - privilege and private advantage - schools that ordinary Americans couldn't dream of affording in our "growth" economy.

His policies are the same bankrupt policies - the Bush policies - that got us into this mess: deregulation, lack of oversight (SEC), tax cuts for millionaires, billionaires, running huge deficits, starting trumped-up wars where no clear American interests are involved.

But it's obstruction that will be his main contribution to the democratic process. The same kind of obstruction that we have seen with the clique of Tea Party insurgents in the House who just rebuked Republican leadership on Plan B. And there's a price we pay for this obstructionism - a completely dysfunctional government in a time of national economic crisis.

Once again the takers show up here blaming the rep for not raising taxes so they can have more. Do you realize that your great Prez and Dems haven't passed a budget in 4 years !!! 4 Years !!! Tax and spend, tax and spend !!!! Your beloved Franks, Waters, and Dodd all said right before the housing bubble crashed the economy that everything was just fine. Even voted to give their buddies at Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae a raise. Then proceeded to get their sweetheart mortgages. And Obama just sits there and says, my way or the highway. He has no plan, other than vote buying by use of taxes for his Takers. Other than the takers demanding more from the makers, just what is obama and the dems plan? 3 years in a row not a single Senator voted for his budget, not one Rep, not one Dem.
Takers 52% Makers 48% !! We Lose!!!!

Sam Walton is known as a 'maker.' His Wal-Mart employees must have food stamps to survive. Quite the maker, old Sam. His Wal-Mart employees go to work - day after day - in dead-end jobs for not enough money to pay rent and utilities - for a wage well below poverty - but they WORK - every day. Old Sam is actually a TAKER to a sinful degree.

That taker and maker myth has been debunked many times over. A very interesting comment was made on one of the news programs last night. Don't remember the exact quote - but someone said that the majority of thinking republicans have been in agreement that Boehner is completely dogged yet ineffectual. This person went on to say that the only people who still agree with Boehner are the ones who are the most stubborn - or the most stupid - you decide.